O'Neill repeated the figure while he considered O'Donnell's death and the loss of his own arm. 'What were you going to do with… two hundred pounds?' he asked.
'A motorbike… I was going to buy a motorbike.'
Words failed O'Neill. He turned on his heel and went over to the two men by the door. One of them handed him a pistol and he accepted it without saying a word. Almost without a pause he went back to the boy and shot him once through the head.
O'Neill left the room and went to the lavatory at the end of the passage where he retched up the contents of his stomach. He had difficulty supporting himself against the brick wall with only one hand and, as he looked down into the bowl, the empty sleeve of his jacket that Kathleen had tucked into his pocket swung free. It had a safety pin in the cuff.
One of the two men had waited for O'Neill before returning upstairs and asked him if he was all right. O'Neill, avoiding his eyes, said that he was. As they got to the end of the basement corridor O'Neill heard a moaning sound come from one of the rooms. He asked about it.
'Have a look,' said the man with what O'Neill thought was suppressed anger in his voice.
There were three men inside the room. All had been knee-capped. The doctor who had performed the operation on his arm was tending one of them. He looked up at O'Neill as he came in then looked away again without saying anything. O'Neill backed out and closed the door.
‘They were the other suspects,' said the man with as much sarcasm as he dared.
The phrase 'process of elimination' repeated itself inside O'Neill's head.
O'Neill was aware that Kell was searching his face for signs of weakness when he returned upstairs. The fact that Nelligan, Kell's minder, was grinning suggested that they had been sharing a joke. That the grin stayed on Nelligan's face when he entered suggested that it might have been about him personally.
'Did you do it?' asked Kell.
'He's dead,' replied O'Neill.
'A lesson for the learning,' said Kell.
'What lesson did the other three down there learn?' asked O'Neill, unable to hide his anger. For a moment it seemed as though he had lit Kell's fuse but the cloud of anger that hovered on Kell's face disappeared to be replaced by a slight grin. 'We sometimes have to do unpleasant things in war, Martin,' he said in a voice that was ten below zero.
Feeling that it would be pointless to provoke Kell further O'Neill changed the subject. 'Did you find the key to the safe?' he asked with his heart in his mouth.
'No, we'll have to blow it.'
I’ll have a look before I go,’ said O'Neill hoping that he sounded calm for his pulse was racing. This might be his only chance to get his hands on the envelope.
Kell fixed him with a smile and eyes that seemed to see right through him. 'Why not?' he said.
O'Neill felt as if he were standing on broken glass.
O'Neill left the room and paused for a moment in the quiet of the corridor. He could hear his heart beating. He could never serve under Kell. The man hated him, not just disliked, as he had always known, but hated. He could feel it in the air whenever he was near him, enveloping him like a malignant vapour.
O'Neill walked quickly and quietly along the corridor to the little room that had been O'Donnell's. It was unchanged because The Bairn could not use it. A brick support pillar prevented the manoeuvring of his pram through the doorway. O'Neill was glad. It would not have been right to have the little psychopath in O'Donnell's room.
He knew exactly where the safe key was because O'Donnell had told him before he died. He pulled one of the drawers right out of the desk and turned it around. There, taped to the back with red masking tape, was a small plastic card, the electronic key to the safe. He removed it and put the drawer back on its runners. Now for the safe itself.
The safe was built into the end wall of a long narrow room known as the Council Room, which served as the place where sector commanders met to discuss strategy. It had an oval table and eight chairs in it but very little else. O'Neill tried the door. It was locked. He drew his lips back over his teeth in exasperation and released his grip on the handle slowly so as to avoid noise. What now, damn it? He would have to find the key.
As O’Neill considered where it might be, he heard Nelligan's voice raised in laughter. Nelligan could always be relied upon to appreciate Kell's humourless wit. Big, dumb, faithful Nelligan. Kell's friends were his friends; Kell's enemies were his enemies. The body of an ox and the brain of a rabbit, and he had no love for O'Neill.
As Nelligan's voice grew louder O'Neill realised that Kell's door was about to be opened and he had no wish to be discovered lurking near the Council Room. He moved swiftly away from the door and returned to O'Donnell's room to wait there with the light off and the door slightly ajar. He heard the squeak of the pram wheels going in the other direction and breathed a sigh of relief. In the darkness he wondered why Kell never had his wheels oiled but, in his heart, he thought that he already knew the answer. The Bairn wanted people to know when he was coming, wanted them to know… and be afraid.
The voices faded and O'Neill knew that he would have to act quickly. The key to the Council Room must be somewhere in the room that Kell had just left. He glided silently along the corridor and slipped into it, closing the door behind him and clicking on the light. He looked around for inspiration.
There, on the wall, was a wooden board with keys hanging on it. O'Neill gave silent thanks and went over to read the Dymo Tape labels, 'c room' said one on the third row. O'Neill removed the key and the door opened behind him.
'Oh… excuse me. Oh, it's you, Mr O'Neill…'
O'Neill did his best to recover his balance. 'I was looking for the key to Mr O'Donnell's room,' he lied.
'It's not locked.'
'In that case…' O'Neill smiled and walked towards the door.
'Where's Mr Kell?' asked the man.
Was that suspicion in his voice? wondered O'Neill or was it guilt playing tricks on him? 'I don't know,’ he said calmly, 'I was looking for him myself.'
O'Neill did not know the man but guessed that he must be one of Kell's proteges. 'I'll come back later,’ he said as he squeezed past him and started walking towards O'Donnell's room. He felt the man's eyes on his back all the way but when he turned round there was no one there. It had been his imagination.
O'Neill let himself into the Council Room and approached the safe. He pressed the electronic key into the slot and heard the mechanism respond. There was a large sum of money in the main vault, but more important and lying on its own on the top shelf, as O'Donnell had said, was a sealed white envelope. O'Neill removed it and put it into his pocket. He closed the safe door and, as the lock reset itself, he suddenly became aware of another sound, the single squeak of a pram wheel.
Fear threatened to paralyse O'Neill, his throat was so tight that he could hardly breathe. He knew that Kell was behind him but the question was, how long had he been there? There was no alternative, he had to brass it out. He put the key back in the slot and watched the door swing open again hoping that Kell would believe that he was just trying out the key. He gave a grunt of satisfaction and turned round to feign surprise at the sight of Kell and Nelligan in the doorway.
'I found it,’ said O'Neill, holding up the card.
'So I see,’ said Kell evenly and without smiling. 'Where?'
O'Neill told him the truth.
Kell looked over his shoulder at Nelligan and said, 'I thought you searched O'Donnell's desk?'
'I didn't look there,’ confessed the big man with a hangdog expression.
'No matter,’ said Kell quietly. The main thing is we have it.' He held out his hand and O'Neill walked over to drop the card into it. 'Anything interesting in there?' Kell asked, fixing O'Neill with a stare.
'I didn't really have time to look. Would you like me to look now?' asked O'Neill with a casualness that was a long way from being genuine. As Kell searched his face he felt the blood pound painfully in the stump of his arm.
'Later will do,’ said Kell. 'We have things to talk about.' Kell looked up at Nelligan and said, 'Leave us.'
Nelligan parked Kell's pram at the head of the oval table and left the room. O'Neill sat down at the other end and faced Kell.
‘The McGlynns have asked for a meeting,’ said Kell.
